Portland Timbers officially launch MLS work

Jamie Francis/The OregonianPortland Timbers technical director Gavin Wilkinson and owner Merritt Paulson.As Merritt Paulson faced 50 PGE Park employees Thursday morning in the first official staff meeting of the Major League Soccer Portland Timbers, he spoke in grand terms of the franchise that begins play in 2011.

“This is bigger than the Pacific Northwest being the hub of soccer in North America,” Paulson said. “This is about soccer finally taking hold in the country. You know, for years people have asked, ‘When will the world’s biggest sport finally matter in America? When will all those kids who play soccer actually watch soccer?’ And I tell you that that time is now.

“Don’t get me wrong; there’s a lot of work to do on and off the field. But we’ve hit that tipping point.”

As Paulson spoke to a rapt audience, seated in rows of folding chairs in PGE Park’s visitors’ locker room, he heaped expectations on the franchise he owns and will run. Yet it appears that Portland’s MLS team will face as much of a challenge in keeping up with its big brother up the road — the Seattle Sounders — as it will in helping legitimize pro soccer in the United States.

Earlier, Paulson had patched through a call on speakerphone from MLS commissioner Don Garber, who praised him for doing “yeoman’s work” in finalizing the framework of a franchise deal. Paulson and the Portland City Council plowed through months of negotiations and thickets of controversy to finalize on Wednesday a $31 million public-private partnership to retrofit PGE Park for soccer.

Garber extolled the growth of the league that was born in 1996 and has 16 teams.

“But the real exciting time for all of us is in 2011, when you join with Vancouver (B.C.) and match up with Seattle and I think give us what this country has never had, which is a true epicenter of passion for the sport,” Garber said.

“Seattle is continuing to surprise us all. They haven’t announced it yet, but they’ve sold out their available season tickets (for 2010). They’re now at 32,000 and expect to go well north of 40,000 for their attendance.”

That would be the equivalent of two Rose Garden Arenas, full for every game.

“With that in mind, you might ask yourself, ‘Who is Soccer City USA?’” Paulson said, invoking Portland’s nickname earned when it drew a few crowds more than 30,000 for games in the now-defunct North American Soccer League. “I remind all of us why we are Soccer City USA.

Jamie Francis/The OregonianFoosball tables advertising Portland's MLS team are being placed in pubs around town.“We’ve got the greatest fans, the greatest atmosphere. This is a really, really special place, in Portland. And it’s a big opportunity.”

But if Seattle is the benchmark, then Portland has a long climb to reach it. Seattle sold 10,000 season-ticket deposits within a month of announcing its franchise. Portland sold 5,000 and cannot eclipse the Sounders’ record because PGE Park will hold no more than 24,000.

The Seattle metro area has 3.3 million people; Portland’s has 2.2 million. The Sounders arrived as the Sonics were leaving town and the Seahawks and Mariners slumped. The MLS Timbers arrive as the state’s college football teams draw more fans than ever and the Trail Blazers have sold out 98 consecutive games. When the NASL’s Timbers were packing the stadium in the mid-1970s, the Blazers had not yet won the 1977 NBA title and become the state’s dominant franchise.

But given its rapturous crowds and uber-urban stadium, Portland still carries soccer cachet. Paulson quoted an unnamed “senior executive at ESPN” as saying that if he could own any MLS team, he would choose Portland.

Paulson also quoted Teddy Roosevelt — “my favorite president in the history of this country” — on the honor inherent in toiling to reach a goal rather than criticizing from the sideline. He reminded employees of the three most popular sports in the U.S. in the 1950s: baseball, horse racing and boxing.

It was a strategic lesson for people now charged with spreading the gospel of pro soccer, sometimes a tributary of American spectator sports but not in the mainstream, that “things can change. Things have changed.”

Paulson’s audience was silent, the only sound competing with his voice the rumble of heat blowing into the low-ceilinged room.

“You’re in a position to make history,” Paulson said. “This isn’t hyperbole. The Portland Timbers are Portland’s team, but you guys are the stewards that are ultimately going to be responsible for its success.”

After he spoke, Paulson called up employees one by one to accept green Adidas jerseys with each person’s last name screened onto the back.

After the 20-minute ceremony, employees climbed into the stadium’s stands and posed for a group photo. Paulson stood front and center. Just more than one year away from his team’s first kickoff, he clutched a cell phone in his left hand and a soccer ball in the right.